The Small-Town Sea

A haunting portrait of a family caught in death's long shadow' INDIAN EXPRESSUprooted from a bustling city the thirteen-year-old protagonist of The Small-town Sea is replanted in his father's home town where he struggles to cope with his new life. He reluctantly makes friends with Bilal a boy who lives in the orphanage run by the local mosque. Together they embark on clandestine adventures while his ailing father-a writer whose last wish is to die listening to the sea he has grown up by-rediscovers people from his childhood. But his father's death unsettles the boy's life again and he finds himself grappling with altogether unexpected challenges.'A Swami and Friends suitable for the darkness of the 21st century combined with an Indian response to that eternal growing-up classic The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger' THE HINDU'Reminds one of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India where the most ordinary becomes extraordinary through the writer's craft'-INDIA TODAY'Anees Salim knows how to tell a story . . . A novel of haunting quality . . . Unputdownable'-TIMES OF INDIA About the Author Anees Salim is an award-winning writer and an advertising professional employed with FCBUlka. His published works include among othersVanity Bagh (winner of The Hindu Literary Prize for Best Fiction 2013)The Blind Lady's Descendants (winner of the Raymond Crossword Book Award for Best Fiction2014) andThe Small-town Sea (winner of the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize for Best Fiction 2017). He lives in Kochi with his wife and two children Omar and Adah.